Sheila Hicks, Rempart, 2016 Pigmented acrylic fiber Variable dimensions
galerie frank elbaz is pleased to announce the opening of Sheila Hicks’s exhibition "New Work", on August 9 at the SFMOMA.
"For nearly seven decades, Sheila Hicks has redefined contemporary art through groundbreaking works that push the expressive possibilities of fiber as a sculptural material. Untethered to the confines of a loom, she creates at varying scales, twisting, wrapping, braiding, knotting, and coiling threads into forms that frequently veer into space or are integrated into monumental architectural settings. Endlessly curious, she pursues “how to make materials do what they want to do, but my way.”
For SFMOMA’s New Work exhibition, Hicks, who was born in Nebraska and has worked from Paris since 1964, draws inspiration from places with personal significance, from the cobblestones of her courtyard to the towering lighthouses of Ouessant, France, with its rocky landscape reminiscent of the rugged shores of Northern California.
Her works respond to forms, structures, and colors observed in her adopted city or during her travels. A constellation of the artist’s circular “boules” radiate as luminous beacons. Their vivid spectrum of layered surfaces entwined with crisscrossing lines conjure topographical terrains, cosmological maps, or the prismatic lenses of searchlights. A selection of minimes, intimate compositions woven on handheld frames, highlight daily explorations of construction techniques, textures, and color, which Hicks studied under Bauhaus artist Josef Albers at Yale. Each is a unique, often playful inquiry into the behaviors of materials and form. Her recent bas reliefs chart new territory in panels wrapped double-sided with lines of linen threads. Glacier-shaped formations stitched on the diagonal enliven the plane with floating spaces and contrasting colors.
Anchoring the gallery is a soaring phare (French for lighthouse) whose twisted, vibrantly pigmented ropes cascade into space. The exhibition’s ensemble of past and recent artworks encircle this towering form, each a participant in the artist’s continually evolving concepts and journey. Like a lighthouse, Hicks says, the progression is “showing you the way . . . lighting your path.”
An expansive outdoor commission in the museum’s Jean and James Douglas Family Sculpture Garden extends the gallery presentation."
Text : SFMOMA
"For nearly seven decades, Sheila Hicks has redefined contemporary art through groundbreaking works that push the expressive possibilities of fiber as a sculptural material. Untethered to the confines of a loom, she creates at varying scales, twisting, wrapping, braiding, knotting, and coiling threads into forms that frequently veer into space or are integrated into monumental architectural settings. Endlessly curious, she pursues “how to make materials do what they want to do, but my way.”
For SFMOMA’s New Work exhibition, Hicks, who was born in Nebraska and has worked from Paris since 1964, draws inspiration from places with personal significance, from the cobblestones of her courtyard to the towering lighthouses of Ouessant, France, with its rocky landscape reminiscent of the rugged shores of Northern California.
Her works respond to forms, structures, and colors observed in her adopted city or during her travels. A constellation of the artist’s circular “boules” radiate as luminous beacons. Their vivid spectrum of layered surfaces entwined with crisscrossing lines conjure topographical terrains, cosmological maps, or the prismatic lenses of searchlights. A selection of minimes, intimate compositions woven on handheld frames, highlight daily explorations of construction techniques, textures, and color, which Hicks studied under Bauhaus artist Josef Albers at Yale. Each is a unique, often playful inquiry into the behaviors of materials and form. Her recent bas reliefs chart new territory in panels wrapped double-sided with lines of linen threads. Glacier-shaped formations stitched on the diagonal enliven the plane with floating spaces and contrasting colors.
Anchoring the gallery is a soaring phare (French for lighthouse) whose twisted, vibrantly pigmented ropes cascade into space. The exhibition’s ensemble of past and recent artworks encircle this towering form, each a participant in the artist’s continually evolving concepts and journey. Like a lighthouse, Hicks says, the progression is “showing you the way . . . lighting your path.”
An expansive outdoor commission in the museum’s Jean and James Douglas Family Sculpture Garden extends the gallery presentation."
Text : SFMOMA
August 9, 2025 - August 9, 2026
